Legolas Greenleaf's Diary, 2002 Edition
by Mary-Lou1
Summary: The Fellowship are alive in 2002, and dealing with Smug Marrieds, stressful jobs and the fact that a certain film has been released.


Right, this is an incredibly daft thing I wrote as a follow-up to Legolas Greenleaf's Diary (which still isn't finished yet, sorry, am working on it!). It's...weird, so could you please review and tell me what you think?

Disclaimers: Don't own Lord of the Rings, Bridget Jones or any other licensed products mentioned in this. Idea of Smug Marrieds and Singletons belongs to Bridget Jones and I borrowed a scene from a Friends episode. Songs Aragorn sings nicked from Terry Pratchett. Gandalf being chuffed at being played by a 'sir' inspired by torturedwriter, which reminds me:

Dedication: fic dedicated to torturedwriter, who convinced me to post at ff.net in the first place and also leant me her preciousss, a tape of Orlando Bloom on Richard and Judy.

Enough of that, here's the fic

**December 31st - 5.33pm**

New Year's Resolutions 

I WILL

-spring clean my flat and throw out all the old arrows I have lying about, keep stabbing feet on them anyway.

-baby-sit Aragorn and Arwen's brats, I mean lovely children for one night of the year, plus an extra night if its an emergency (see what a nice Elf I am!)

-go and see the film of Lord of the Rings and not hide behind the seat when the actor playing me comes on

-save up and buy that DVD player

-hide my Playstation from Pippin

-get Pippin a job

I WILL NOT

-kill Gandalf for telling Tolkien about Middle Earth and our adventures there

-resign from my job, boring as it is I need the money!

-put up with anymore crap from Gimli/Frodo/Gandalf/basically anyone I know, I may be an Elf but I'm not a walkover

-smack Arwen the next time she starts going about how I need a she-Elf in my life

There, think that's enough to be going on with. Now time for the party at Aragorn's.

**January 1st - 3.32, no 3.33, wait 3.32am - stupid clock keeps tricking me!**

Party good wine nice Gimli funny when drunk and 

**January 1st - 10.44am - hungover!**

Eurgh, cannot believe I got drunk! Ended up crawling up the stairs to the room I use when I crash at Aragorn's for parties, wrote the above and then collapsed on top of my diary. Woke up with a hangover and discovered that had drooled and as a result have huge ink stain on face. Hang on, will just go wash it off.

**10.56am**

Argh! Ink stain will not come off! Am marked for life, boyish good looks are permanently ruined!

Should have known the party would end like this!

Stupid party, started to go downhill when reached house. Aragorn OK (glad to see him, as is best friend) but Arwen immediately cornered me to demand how my love life was. Seems to think am insane for being 6000-yr-old single Elf. Had to put up with her speculating about any bad break ups, psychotic partners and uncertainties over my sexuality I may have experienced which would have lead to my decision to be Singleton. Was glad when she left me alone and went to attack Frodo instead.

This left me with Aragorn, who was looking v. pissed off with world in general. He proceeded to get drunk and sing "A Wizard's Staff Has a Knob on the End" at full volume, followed by "The Hedgehog Song" and a selection of inventive songs about Hobbits.

Gimli turned up with his wife, who is currently in process of domesticating the Dwarf. He had one glass of wine and then drank only water, mineral water. Even Elves get drunk over New Year, but Mrs. Gimli says that wine is bad for you and her husband is not to drink it in excess. When Frodo used example of what Mrs. Gimli (whose name is either Mindy or Mandy or even Wendy, can never remember) is doing - i.e. changing his entire personality to suit her own evil purposes - as reason for him (Frodo) never marrying, Arwen went off on one. Starting laying into Aragorn and his habit of "keeping his weapons inside the house, as if the shed isn't good enough for them". This prompted Aragorn to switch to some very rude and insulting songs about Elves, sung in Elvish on a continuous loop.

This is the point at which I started to get drunk.

Oh, hang on, phone.

**11.27am**

Was Pippin. He and Merry went into town to celebrate New Year, went to The Hobbit[1] and had one drink too many. Ended up at Southampton Docks where they stumbled onto a cargo ship and ended up in Germany. Must now fork out money to get them back and push aside desire to leave them in Germany and get rid of them forever.

**January 3rd - 11.35am - Heathrow Airport, awaiting Merry and Pippin**

Merry and Pippin are due back any minute. Aragorn is with me, said he needed to get out the house. Arwen ranted at him for half an hour before finally letting him go, so the drive to Heathrow (he drove, I can't, I'm a bit of a technophobe even extending to cars) was fun. Sara Cox was on the radio and I had to sit through it all; her voice grates me a bit but Aragorn didn't seem to mind, though I think he was in too much of a blind and deaf rage to notice anything much. He kept muttering to himself in Elfin, obviously forgetting that I'm an Elf and can therefore understand every word he said. He wasn't being particularly polite either.

"Aragorn, how are things with you and Arwen?" I asked when we'd reached the cafe where we'd agreed to meet Merry and Pippin.

"They're fine," he said through gritted teeth. "Do you know if there are any bands of Orcs anywhere? Or Uruk-Hai?"

"I think we wiped most of them out," I said. "Remember?"

"Oh, yeah," he said, looking disappointed. "Well, any wars? Any wars where using a sword is necessary?"

"Not anymore," I said. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," he said. "Stop pestering me!"

"I was only asking!" I snapped, folding my arms over my chest and sinking down in my chair. Great, Arwen and Aragorn were fighting, and it must be bad if Aragorn wanted to vent his feelings by hunting Orc.

**10.49pm **

When the Hobbits finally turned up - their plane was delayed by three hours - Aragorn looked ready to kill and it was a good thing he didn't have anything sharp on him or heads would, quite literally, have rolled. Managed to keep Hobbits away from him long enough to warn them about the consequences of annoying him further, and had to clamp my hand over Pippin's mouth when he said (somewhat loudly): "oh, is Arwen no longer giving him any then? Maybe I should 'ave a go with her, always 'ave liked her y'know."

The life of the Fellowship has taken some weird turns over the years. There was the time we all went on the Crusades, including the Hobbits, and then there was that little business at Agincourt when Aragorn insisted on giving Henry V tips on making speeches. And then there was that time when Gandalf changed his name to Merlin and had a jolly old time messing with English history.

Nowadays, however, we have all more or less settled down to normal modern life. Aragorn and Arwen are still doing Ye Age Olde Smug Married act, which has been carrying on for millennia and is really starting to bug the rest of us. It didn't affect the Hobbits at first, because they were Smug Marrieds themselves, but then their wives succumbed to old age and died and the Hobbits discovered that, as a reward for kicking arse in Middle Earth, they were granted immortality by the forces of good (or something like that).

So, we survived through the millennia and are now happily occupied in the following ways:>

Frodo - is a cook at a local senior school. He sometimes serves as dinnerlady...dinnerhobbit, complete with one of those weird pink checked coat things.

Sam - is a gardener at a stately home, and has to put up with tourists trampling over his precious lawns. He nearly went homicidal last year when he caught some kids picking some rare and priceless flowers.

Merry - has a job! After centuries of taking anything that came along and failing miserably to find something he actually enjoyed, he has now found his calling as (get ready for it) a nurse. In nursing homes, where he is known as Mr Merry to all the elderly, and somewhat senile, occupants.

Pippin - is unemployed and sponging off the rest of us. He lives with Merry, who always makes a new years' resolution to get Pippin a job or throw him out to shake him up a bit, but never keeps it.

Gimli - was a miner, but when they closed the mines he got a job at a local cinema. His treatment of costumers is less than desirable, but its a job.

Gandalf - is in retirement, which involves sitting on his front porch, smoking and making everyone in the neighbourhood view him as a mad old man. The local kids are scared stiff of him, especially as he's managed to pull off a perfect insane cackle. It's all his fault that people know about the Fellowship, because he went into some pub in Oxford in the 1930s, met Tolkien and told him everything in a drunken babble. Gandalf finds the whole thing quite amusing, including the ending of the book which was changed from real life in some places, and has been to see the film three times all ready. His verdict: "well, I look good, and I got a 'sir' playing me, imagine that!"

Aragorn - works somewhere in the New Forest, never have found out what. Occasionally helps with Scout and Guides camping or hiking out there, but what his real job is is shrouded in mystery.

Me - living on my own and working in a publishing company a la Bridget Jones (only without the sleeping with the boss thing, as my boss is an ugly old git in his late 50s). I live on my own but recently have had one of the Hobbits crashing round mine, because I own a Playstation and they don't.

**January 4th - 9:25am - work, bleugh!**

Am back at work, which is boring. Back to the fun that is reading crappy novels people send in. Think brain is frying from the number of dodgy sword & sorcery books we receive. Plot is always the same, following basic Joseph Campbell rules of the archetypal hero. Does not help that work colleague, Petunia, is pain in arse who insists on calling me either 'de-ah' or 'dahhhling'. Would like to hit her, but must refrain from doing so as might get fired and much as I hate job I need money.

**10.27am**

Just got usual morning phone call from Gimli, had to listen to nearly an hour of Dwarvish ranting. He loves his wife, so he says, but she's really cramping his style as ex-axe wielding maniacal warrior guy. Am doing duty as very old friend and listening to Gimli's problems with half an ear, making appropriate comments such as 'yes' and 'hmm' at right intervals whilst doing work at same time. When he eventually hung up I discovered that Petunia was staring at me like an Orc who's spotted a Hobbit.

"Petunia, is there a problem?" I asked innocently, hoping she wasn't about to yell at me for taking private calls during work hours, even though she spends at least three hours a day nattering to her friend Clare.

"You're single, aren't you?" she said, smiling. Oh no, another female who thinks being a Singleton is a crime. 

"Yes," I said warily.

"Good," she said. Oh help, was she about to fix me up with someone? Or, worse, ask me out? "Its just that Dave, you know, in publicity, is single too and you two would make the cutest couple and -"

"You're trying to set me up with a guy?" I sputtered.

"Yes, well, you're gay, aren't you?"

"No," I said.

"Oh," Petunia seemed to mull this information over. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," I said, perhaps a little too vehemently. "Look, Petunia, I think at the age of s - twenty-five I can be expected to know my own sexuality."

She just gave me a Look before flouncing back to her desk. Brilliant, co-workers think I'm gay. Not that I have anything against homosexuals in general, but am not one myself. Oh no, how do I face Dave now?

And how close did I just get to telling Petunia my real age? I haven't changed my name or anything, just told everyone that my parents were Tolkien fans and named me after the Elf. If only Gandalf hadn't met Tolkien in that pub none of this would've happened. Would be nice, normal working guy with unusual name, not someone who shares name with a 'fictional' character. Is worse since film came out and people started harping on about actor playing me! Is apparently good-looking, but not sure if he will be as pretty as me. See, look, still have narcissism after all these millennia.

Decided to go get coffee. Was halfway down hall to vending machine when whoomph! slammed into someone and fell over. Elfish reflexes not what they used to be. Looked up, was Dave, guy Petunia wanted to set me up with. Oh no...

"Legolas," he said, pronouncing it 'legless', he was so dead, "are you OK?"

"Yes," I said, getting to my feet. "You?"

"Fine," he said, smiling. "Er, look, Petunia was talking to me earlier and - "

"I'mnotgay," I blurted out.

"I know," he said. "I actually found it quite funny. But that's Petunia for you, always trying to fix people up regardless of their suitability for each other."

I nodded, feeling relieved.

"She is quite annoying," I said. Then I paused, sensing her presence, "and she's behind me right now, right?"

"Oh yeah," said Dave. "See you Legolas, good day to you Petunia."

He walked off and I turned round to face Petunia.

"Phone call for you," she said. "A Mr Baggins."

"Baggins?" I said.

"Yes, a Fred Baggins," she said. "For a moment I thought he'd said Frodo. Imagine that, Frodo Baggins and you're Legolas Green. It would be too perfect. Have you seen the film, by the way? It's absolutely marvellous and -"

"I'll just go take that call," I said, hurrying round her and going to my desk, where my phone rested off the hook. I picked it up and asked, tentatively, "Fred?"

"Legolas, hi, I have a problem," Frodo said, squeaking.

"What?"

"I'm stuck in the broom cupboard and phoning on my mobile," he said.

"Why are you in the broom cupboard?"

"Some girls chased me in here," he said. I blinked; girls, chasing Frodo?

"Why?"

"They were calling me Elijah," he said. "And they rushed me! Why were they calling me Elijah?"

"Elijah Wood plays you in the film," I explained, lowering my voice so Petunia wouldn't hear. "He does look a bit like you, but not much."

"You realise something, Legolas," he said hesitantly.

"What?"

"After you figure out how to get me out of this cupboard in one piece, we're going to have to go see that film."

I, scarily enough, agreed with him.

[1] In Southampton there's a pub called The Hobbit which sells cocktails named after LOTR characters. There's a Legolas, a Frodo, a Bilbo, a Gollum and a Gandalf, I think, and my friends tell me they come in pint glasses (never been there myself, was too busy when friends went *sulks*). Anyway, I just thought it was appropriate for Merry and Pippin to go to The Hobbit.

Another plea for reviews is inserted here: reviews please.


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